Just now I have been listening to some Wayne Fontana, CCR, and Three Dog Night. I started wondering if today's pop music will ever be looked back upon by future generations and loved the way many people love music from the 60's 70's and so on. Almost all the music I listen to was recorded decades before my birth. I just can't see any comparison to what is currently popular.

A lot of people acknowledge that today's pop music is generally crappy, but most young people love it.  Was the pop music in the 60's ever looked at as low class, filthy, and mass produced as today's pop music is? Will Nicki Minaj and her ilk be revered in 50 years the same way people revere the classics/ pop music of past generations?

Quite honestly I am ashamed of my generation.  

No.

Sadly, probably not, and for several reasons.

The music business is completely different than it was 40 years ago.

Most people don't buy the whole album or cd anymore like we did in the 70's and 80's.

Those under 30 don't know or care about buying the album, and reading the liner notes and lyrics like we did to really learn more about the bands and their songs.
When we used to buy an album, if it had a multi page booklet in it with color pics, tour info, and a small merch flyer in it, we thought we had won the lottery.

Bands have to stay on perpetual tour just to survive.

Rock has been reduced to 4th place behind rap, county, and pop.

Many cities don't even have a decent rock radio station.

Bands just don't have the mystique and fan base that 70's bands had.
There are a lot of one or two hit wonder bands out there, and I don't know many new bands that have come out in the last 10 years that could reach the pinnacle of rock royalty like a Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith, or CCR.

No MTV or other cable channel playing new music videos. If you are not listening to satellite or internet radio stations, you will only hear the pop drivel that is spoon fed to you.

Songs just don't have the staying power that it requires to become a "Dream On", "Stairway to Heaven", or "Fortunate Son".

Just my .02 cents and worth what you paid for it.

Pop and Pop influenced stuff that sounds like manufactured crap, and that lame ass "Ambient" shit? No.
And alot of people blame the internet for killing the Music Industry, but I beg to differ. MTV killed the Music Industry, as far as I'm concerned, and the internet is a very useful tool for those who know how to use it. Look at Keith Merrow for an example. Here's a guy that just up and decided to record his own music and put it out there, and started doing demos for stuff he liked. Eventually some in the music industry noticed him and now even though to the best of my knowledge he doesn't have a record contract, is one of the guys who plays a part in the goings on at Seymour Duncan, is endorsed by Schecter, is able to call guys like Jeff Loomis & Ola Englund friends, and has recorded several albums on his own along with a collaboration with Jeff Loomis. Sure, it's not a multi-million dollar record contract, but he's in a position that many would envy, all because he used the internet to his advantage.
So there's good music being made these days. Problem is, you have to look for it.




 

Last time I checked the Billboard charts (because I had no idea what was on the radio these days), Pharell's "Happy" was #1 on almost all of them (save the non-pop--rock charts).  Hot 100, R&B, Urban, Kids, ... #1 on almost every chart.

My son asked me to turn up "Fancy" on the radio the other day, and while I detest the song I get it's pop appeal.

But no, I don't see either of those songs being played a decade from now, unless Chris Pratt starts making Cusack-esq nostalgia-bait movies (Hot Tub Time Machine 3: Return to the '10s).

Hip Hop is notoriously fickle about being new and, well, hip.  Who listens to Rakim or EPMD any more besides mid-30's white dudes?

 

I figured this would be the response, but you guys did offer some useful insight to the music industry. I am not super musically inclined or anything, but I recognize good music when I hear it. What we are hearing today is not good. It's sad that I might never get to turn up a song on the radio and look at my kids and say "this one came out while I was in college." ALL the popular stuff that came out while I was in high school has already faded away into history.

Sure, but these guys were some of the pioneers of rap.  In my teen years I discovered albums made long before I was born -- from Zepplin, The Who, Pink Floyd -- and regularly listened to them alongside Metallica, Nirvana, Pearl Jam.  No one growing up today listening to Nicki has ever heard of MC Lyte, and think of Queen Latifah as a talk-show host.

I was invited to go to a Paul McCartney concert last night.  The man puts on a pretty good show. Even though the songs were 50 years old they were still good.  Its hard to imagine anyone listening to today's stuff 50 years from now.

My 2 cents.

I was going to say that current mainstream music is disposable drek that will be long forgotten less than 10 years from now, but the question occoured to me about why I think certain music/bands/performers are "classic" to me.
I really started paying attention to music and developing opinions about what I liked/disliked when i was in highschool and roughly the 10 years following highschool. I suspect that if we asked people in the 15 - 25 age bracket today which contemporary music they consider to be "classics" of their genre, we'd get very different answers to what we would consider to be "classics".  And I suspect that our parents would have different answers as well.

I'm still wrestling with this question of why something is/isn't considered "classic", but what I think I'm trying to say is that I suspect it's a combination of the prevalent musical trends of the day and each person's intellectual development in terms of being able to understand the music at a more than superficial level, topped off with a willingness by acts/record companies to release music that has more substance than yet another banal pop love song in a market that is oversaturated with a whole lot more of the very same thing. Or maybe I'm just overthinking this.

I do agree that buying an album was more fun in the past than it is today. I still remember the first time I saw the Rolling Stones "Some Girls" vinyl album cover with the cutouts in the outer sleeve and the printing on the inner sleeve that lined up with the cutouts (a cousin had bought it). I thought that album cover was too cool for words at the time. Even CD's never really gave the same hands on tactile and visual experience vinyl albums could, IMO. I'm not a vinyl snob, I don't own a turntable, but when they were done well, vinyl albums had an impact and charisma to them that more modern formats really don't match (and I know there are still niche vinyl releases today).

 


















 

That sums it up.

A lot of the bands from the 70's and 80's are still putting out albums and making good music, but if you don't follow them on facebook or twitter and
watch their websites, you will never hear any of it.

Personally, I think it has a lot to do with how much diversity there is in music today.   Now just about anybody with a computer and some software can produce a fairly decent track, sonically I mean.   I don't have any personal experience with it, but I think it was a lot harder to make music when everything was analog.  It was a lot more difficult to get into the studio.  More time was spent on a smaller sample of bands that were hot during whatever era of music.  

People used to latch onto the same genres and types of bands more often.  Now a lot of good stuff lies in obscurity because a lot of people are putting the music out themselves.   The hype, promotion, and even touring is a lot different now unless you are established already.  

If Beyonce strolled into Fame in Muscle Shoals back in the day, and handed a song to The Swampers  it definitely wouldn't sound much like it does today.  

For me the magic will always be found in the old master tapes.

Long live the 70s and Blue Oyster Cult!

ok, I'll shut up now.